“That government being instituted for the common benefit, the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.” Constitution of the State of Tennessee, Article 1. Section 2.

To Governor Bill Haslam, Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally, Speaker of the House of Representatives Beth Harwell, and the Tennessee General Assembly:

We, the undersigned clergy and faith leaders in Tennessee have joined our hearts, minds, and bodies in the cause of challenging the egregious inequalities and injustices that plague our communities.

The state of Tennessee has failed to advance the interest of the common good by impeding progress and neglecting policies that alleviate suffering, uplift the downtrodden, expand the rights of the vulnerable, and improve the quality of life for all of us who reside in this state.

Instead, over the course of the past few years, the situation has only been exacerbated by several negative policy decisions made by your leadership group. These decisions reject affordable health insurance for many of our poorest. They deny living wages and . make access to low-income housing harder to access. Your decisions threaten women’s health; criminalize the poor; and attack workers rights. Moreover, your decisions undermine our democracy by targeting the voting rights of students, the elderly, minorities, and low-income citizens. They hurt the least of these and the marginalized while serving no legitimate policy purpose.

With the legislative session entering its final weeks and you entering your final year as our Governor, we are moved out of our silence to speak up as we witness state-wide the devastating impacts of your decisions on the lives of the vast majority of Tennessee residents. We write you with a sense of urgency and moral obligation not only as residents of this state that we have grown to love, but as human beings utterly disturbed by the lack of conscience reflected in the policies and practices of this state’s government. There is nothing right in hurting the poor or hampering the access of the marginalized, nor is there any justice in undermining the integrity and and common welfare of our state’s citizens. We urge another direction and advocate for a public policy agenda that serves people instead of narrow anti-people ideology. While our goal is not to cast personal aspersions on you and your colleagues, but to call all of us to higher ground in our governance, remembering that all our state’s policies and practices are being weighed on the scales of justice.

In forming this movement, we issue a moral call for:

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL -- Medicaid Expansion, Women’s Health, and Policies that Safeguard the Quality of Life for All Tennessee Residents.

Preliminary action items:

Reject efforts to repeal the national health care reform law and fully implement it in Tennessee.

Restore the ability of local governments to raise the minimum wage and pass other ordinances that benefit working people.

Raise the minimum wage to ensure that all Tennesseans make living wage, indexed to inflation.

Tennessee must reform its regressive tax system which benefits the rich while hurting the common good.

Repeal policies that restrict local governments from enacting inclusionary zoning policies and other measures to ensure affordable, low-income housing.

VOTING RIGHTS -- The Expansion and Protection of Voting Rights For All!

Preliminary action items:

Repeal discriminatory laws which mandate voter photo identification or other measure which have the effect of suppressing the right of all citizens to exercise their right to vote.

Pass same day (on election day) voter registration.

Establish polling places on Tennessee’s college and university campuses.

RACIAL JUSTICE & POLICE REFORM -- create fairness in the criminal justice system by addressing the continuing inequalities in the system and providing equal protection under the law for black, brown and poor white people.

Preliminary action items:

All Tennessee residents shall be free from harassment, intimidation, monitoring and/or profiling by race, age, gender, mental condition, or other similar reasons.

End and prohibit the militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies in Tennessee.